CDV OF UNION GENERAL ORMSBY M. MITCHEL

Image shows Mitchel seated in a chair with his arms crossed over his chest. He wears a dark double-breasted frock coat with matching dark trousers. The coat has Generals shoulder straps with black velvet collar and cuffs.

The image has good clarity and contrast and is clean.

Reverse has back mark of E. & H. T. ANTHONY… FROM A BRADY NEGATIVE.

Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel was born July 20, 1805 in Kentucky. He graduated from West Point in 1829 and served as an instructor there until he left the Army to teach at Cincinnati College. He popularized the study of astronomy and was largely responsible for the founding of the Naval and Harvard Observatories and directed observatories in Cincinnati and Albany.

He was appointed a Brigadier General of Volunteers in the Department of Ohio in 1861 and promoted to Major General in 1862. He was largely responsible for the plan that resulted in the Andrews Raid and The Great Locomotive Chase. Mitchel was eventually assigned to command The Department of the South with headquarters in South Carolina. While in Beaufort, South Carolina Mitchel came down with Yellow Fever and died October 30, 1862 and was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.